Names she recognized from news broadcasts and guild rankings slid past her thumb.
Jess grabbed her wrist. "Wait, go back."
’Vespera Ashborn - S → SSS’
’Scarlet - S → SSS’
"Yes!" Jess slapped the bench. "Finally! The Two Monarchs at the top where they belong."
"They carried most of the Claimant defense," Mira said, grinning despite herself. Some of the strongest women in the world, the Shadow Monarch and the Flame Monarch, had always been the cream of S-tier and everyone knew it.
Seeing them officially separated from the pack felt right. "SSS. That’s their lane."
"Mommy Vespera earned that ten times over," Jess nodded along sagely. She’d been a Vespera advocate since the woman had stepped onto the battlefield beside her son and turned every shadow in a three-block radius into a weapon.
Mira was in full agreement, but her thumb was already moving again. "Okay. Now where are the Sinners?"
She kept scrolling. More reclassifications. Names she half-recognized from international rankings, guild rosters, government registries.
Kaiden’s name was absent. So were Aria’s, Luna’s, and Nyx’s.
Around them, the crowd had gone weirdly quiet.
The screaming-and-praying energy from earlier had given way to something Mira had never seen: thousands of people hunched over their phones at the same time, swiping in the same direction.
"They’re not under S," Mira said.
Jess leaned closer. "SS?"
"No."
"SSS?"
Mira scrolled back up, checked every name under SSS, scrolled back down. Her stomach tightened. "They’re not anywhere in the S-tiers."
"That doesn’t make sense," Jess said. "We watched the stream. They broke the machines. There’s no way the fuckers gave them A-tier."
"Right."
"So where-"
"I don’t know, let me-"
A new section loaded.
’SECTION II: INTRODUCTION OF A NEW CLASSIFICATION’
Mira’s thumb stopped.
’During the official reassessment of Eclipse Guild members conducted today, seven (7) individuals demonstrated a phenomenon that has never been recorded in the history of standardized awakened measurement.’
’Each individual, upon contact with the Association’s measuring artifact, manifested a physical expression of their class. This manifestation occurred through the artifact alone, without external stimulus, prior preparation, or voluntary activation on the part of the individual being tested.’
’The Awakened Association has determined that this phenomenon cannot be classified within the existing lettering system. A new tier designation has been created.’
’Z-Tier: Assigned to awakened individuals whose class has undergone involuntary manifestation-level expression during standardized measurement. Z-tier does not denote a fixed power level relative to other tiers. Whether Z-tier batants possess innately superior capability to SSS-tier awakened remains under active investigation. The designation reflects a qualitative difference in awakened expression that warrants classification outside the established scale.’
Jess wasn’t breathing.
’The following individuals have been classified as Z-Tier:’
’Aria Levander - F → Z’
’Luna Aster - F → Z’
’Nyx Cosmos - F → Z’
’Bastet Grey - Z’
’Calypso Grey - Z’
’Alice Ashborn - S → Z’
’Alexandra Seren - Z’
F to Z for the original three Valkyries, S to Z for the little sis, and straight to Z for the trio who hadn’t been measured before.
She’d been expecting S-tier when she made her way here today in the early morning, then expected SSS-tier after reading the announcement. The girls deserved only the best classification, after all. But this...?
"Oh my god..." Jess whispered.
Mira blinked a hundred times yet the letters before her eyes did not shift.
F-tiers who’d been fighting things that made even S-ranks run, who’d been saving lives on streams Mira watched from her bedroom floor, who’d taken on the Claimant and walked away much more powerful than ever before.
The Association had given them a letter of their own.
"Kaiden!!" Jess gasped suddenly, shaking her arm. "Where’s Kaiden?"
Mira swiped down. Seven names, and Kaiden Grey wasn’t among them.
"He’s not-" Mira started.
"Keep going," Jess said.
Mira went past the Z-tier roster, past the footnotes, past the methodology section. Her thumb was shaking too hard to aim and she had to use both hands to hold the phone steady.
’SECTION III: SPECIAL CLASSIFICATION’
’The phenomenon observed during the reassessment of Eclipse Guild Leader Kaiden Grey (Paragon of Sin) exceeded all existing and newly created classification parameters.’
’Upon contact with the measuring artifact, Mister Grey’s test triggered the artifact’s Source Trace protocol, a sealed diagnostic function that the Awakened Association had restricted due to insufficient understanding. The Source Trace activated without authorization from Association personnel. The origin signature responded.’
’The response manifested as a global presence event visible across multiple continents simultaneously. The full scope, nature, and implications of this event remain under active investigation by the Awakened Association, the Department of Defense, and international oversight bodies.’
’Mister Grey’s energy output during the test surpassed Z-tier measurement thresholds before the artifact’s diagnostic capabilities were exceeded entirely. The reading subsequently reverted to baseline (F-tier), consistent with Mister Grey’s original classification upon entering the Association.’
’However, neither F-tier, the S-tier lettering system, its revised subdivisions (SS, SSS), nor the newly established Z-tier designation can account for the data recorded during this assessment.’
’Effective immediately, the Awakened Association designates Kaiden Grey, Paragon of Sin, as the first and sole holder of a new classification:’
’ANOMALY-TIER’
’This classification exists outside the standard lettering scale. It denotes an awakened individual whose measured capabilities have exceeded the Association’s current diagnostic framework entirely.’
’Kaiden Grey, Paragon of Sin - F → Anomaly’
"OH MY GOD!!!!!" Jess screamed. She’d watched a man climb from F-tier to a word that meant the scale broke, and the sound that came out of her carried enough raw joy and vindication that three strangers on the next bench flinched.
Mira couldn’t scream.
"Anomaly-tier..." She pressed the phone against her chest with both hands and grinned with eyes going moist, because she’d e to this bench expecting S-tier and the world had given her something that made the entire alphabet obsolete.
Around them, the crowd outside the Association erupted in a new register. Phones lit up.
People shouted names they’d been chanting all day with a different weight behind them.
A group of university students who’d been chanting SINNERS ten minutes ago went silent when they read the word ANOMALY, and then they screamed louder than they had all day.
Jess pulled Mira into a tight hug.
"F to Anomaly," Jess laughed into her hair. "F to fucking Anomaly."
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